


Forging Ahead

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Love Confessions, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11642493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: On an alien planet, the Doctor falls under the influence of a mysterious force and it is up to Donna to save them all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colorofmymind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmymind/gifts).



> Guys, my wonderful beta colorofmymind aka Manders is coming home from Germany after three long weeks tomorrow! To celebrate, I began this little idea at her request which then became a bit too big to tie up neatly in one chapter but I wanted to post at least the first part before she gets in. So, expect the second half in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading and your patience, and please enjoy!

They should have never come here, Donna thought to herself for what felt the millionth time.

Beneath her, the Doctor gave another wriggle and in an increasingly practiced manner Donna hugged his arms a little tighter to herself and squeezed her knees to make sure she wasn't unseated. “It's for your own good, you bloody Martian,” she growled in reminder.

He didn't register her words. She hadn't been able to get through to him for some time now, not after he’d heard the call to the Forge.

“The Sixth Moon of Kazzerack!” The Doctor had declared in the console room that morning, just as they’d landed. “Barely six miles in diameter, population mostly consisting of subsistence farmers. In its whole history there has never been a war, a skirmish, not even a bar fight.”

“What? How’s that possible?” It had sounded too good to be true.

“The inhabitants have an empathic bond that develops as they mature into adulthood. Hard to stay mad at someone when you can see everything from their point of view and vice versa,” he’d explained. “Should be a quiet little visit. Every fifth day there’s a market in the largest town. Food, music, dancing, little bit of theatre. Shall we?”

He’d offered his arm rather gallantly and Donna had stepped forward, linking hers with his. “We shall.”

A grin had lit up her face at the prospect of yet another new world with her Spaceman. No matter how many they visited, she knew she could never get tired of it, and this one in particular sounded very nice. They could do with a tiny little town, a bit of food and festivity.

They'd stepped out of the TARDIS and been met with none of that.

“This place is deserted,” Donna had remarked, walking around the empty market square they'd landed in.

“Must all be out of town. There's a path.” He’d pointed out one of many dirt roads winding off into the distance and taken Donna's hand.

“Do you see that smoke trail?” She'd asked, peering in the same direction as they'd begun walking.

“Could be a campfire,” he’d said, sounding unconcerned.

She'd scoffed. “Yeah, knowing our luck it's a fire-fire.”

“Donna,” he’d whined.

“I’m just saying!”

“No, Donna, something's wrong.” The Doctor had stopped short all of a sudden, looking about as if trying to locate something. “Can you hear that?”

Donna had stood with him in the near absolute silence for a moment. “Hear what?”

“Must be a mental signal. Some kind of compulsion.” His eyes had widened and the grip he'd had on her hand had tightened. “I think it's affecting me.”

“What?” Donna had gaped at him, hardly believing it. Of course she hadn't thought the Doctor was immune to all harm, but this? “Can’t you just, like, defend your mind or whatever? You're a telepath! How come I’m not the one affected?”

“It’s affecting me  _ because _ I’m a telepath, Donna. There’s no natural pathway through your mind for it to exploit. You’re like a brick wall.”

“Oi!”

“No, Donna, that’s a good thing. It means you’re impenetrable!”

“You bet I am, Martian!” She’d said. “Hold on, does that mean you're not?”

The Doctor had shaken his head. “I might have been able to keep it out if I'd known about it from the start.” He’d pressed his free hand to his temple, wincing in pain. “But it was clever. Just a soothing sound in the back of my head, an ambient noise on the lowest setting all around me.”

“Like the Oodsong,” she’d realized.

“It’s calling me,” he’d said, looking off down the path they’d been heading down with a gleam to his eye, and not the good kind. Had he really picked it at random, or had that just been the influence of whatever thing was out there beginning? “Must...join.”

“No,” said Donna, yanking back on his arm. She dug her heels in as he leaned as far forward as possible. “No, we’re not going anywhere near whatever that is! You’re not in charge of your own mind!”

A door had banged open suddenly and a little boy and girl both with large, slightly webbed hands had emerged.

“Don't go! Don't go that way!”

“Nobody ever comes back from the Forge!”

“C’mon, Spaceman, let’s go make some new friends,” Donna had urged. “You love that.”

“No! Must...go on. Must join,” he’d repeated, his face still turned out towards the path.

“Well, let’s not be rude!” She'd looked back desperately at the children. “Help me get him inside, please!”

The girl and boy had run up to them, tugging on the Doctor's coat and dragging him with Donna back into the squat building they'd come out of.

“Here,” a boy at least a couple years older than the children who had invited them in had greeted. He’d held out a wooden bat for Donna to take. “It’s the only way you’ll be able to stop your friend.”

“I’m not gonna  _ clobber _ him!”

“If you want any hope of keeping him from the Forge, you will.”

“He just needs a minute,” she'd stubbornly insisted while continuing to shove her friend away from the door. “He’ll fight it off and then he’ll figure this whole thing out. It's what he does. He's the — Doctor!”

One or both of them had tripped over some part of the earthen floor and they’d gone down in a tangle of limbs. Donna had struggled to be the first up — who knew what he’d do to those kids under some alien influence if he managed to overpower her? — and had managed to get him on his front before she threw her whole weight on top of him.

It was only once she’d secured his arms and ended up straddling his hips that Donna had looked up to notice more than a few children watching them.

“Hi.” She’d blown her bangs out of her eyes with a puff of breath and reached back to smack his leg before he could even think about trying to kick her. “I’m Donna.”

The children had explained everything to her; how one by one the grownups had dropped their tools and walked off down the path and away, never to return. How they spoke of a need to join the Forge, whatever that was. The only adults left in the whole town were being kept under lock and key by the other adolescents to keep them from leaving, though they were beginning to find way around their imprisonment, hence the bats. Gil and Wen were the boy and girl who had helped her, and their current minder was Pac. The others didn’t give their names, and mostly shrunk back into other, smaller rooms once all the fuss had quieted down.

“How come you don’t want to go?” Wen asked her with wide, curious eyes.

“It can’t reach me. I’m not from here, and on my planet we can’t really read each other’s thoughts or feelings,” Donna explained. “I suppose it can’t get to any of you because you haven’t matured yet. That’s when your empathic bond develops, right?”

“You mean when I grow up I’m gonna go away, too?” Gil said, looking frightened.

“No,” Donna assured him. “No one’s going away.”

“ _ He  _ wants to go,” Pac countered, nudging one of the Doctor’s feet with his own.

“Oi! You’ll leave him alone, thanks,” she stated. Pac rolled his eyes, let the bat fall to the floor, and walked off across the room. Gil and Wen were also keeping their distance even as they spoke with her, which she couldn’t exactly blame them for, what with the Doctor intermittently muttering about the Forge and trying to overbalance her. Like a wild horse, he was.

“Let me go,” he demanded. “I have to — must, must join the Forge.”

“I’ll let you up, Doctor,” she promised, “but you gotta prove you’re still in there. Just fight it, even for a moment. I know you can. Tell me something — something only you’d know. Something true.”

His jaw clenched and another spasm wracked his body, his breaths coming in short and harsh pants. It was clearly a hard struggle to shake off the unknown influence. But he was trying, and that was already better than before. Donna shifted her grip in order to hold his hands in hers instead of just trapping them.

Then suddenly all the fight seemed to leave him and he was pliant in her hold. “Donna,” the Doctor gasped.

“I’m here! I’m right here, Spaceman.” Donna leaned forward, almost bent completely over him. “Just something true. Just one thing that they can't have touched.”

“Donna.”

“Doctor,  _ please _ ,” she begged. He was so close!

“That's it. You,” he rasped. “Something true they can't touch in my mind. It's you.” He was gazing up at her like no one else ever had, like she'd hung the moon and all the stars he’d set off to see centuries ago. And then, so soft she wasn't sure she was meant to hear it at all, he breathed, “I love you.”

Donna sat back up, eyes wide. The Doctor had tensed again, and there was nothing but horror in his expression.

And Donna didn’t have a clue what was in hers. It felt like her whole train of thought had slammed on the brakes and left her pitching forward off the track. He loved her. Actually loved, not just in a best-mates way, but  _ love _ kind of loved her. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her face felt hot and she had to blink furiously to keep her vision clear. She’d never thought this would happen, never thought it could be true.

Wait. It  _ couldn't _ be true. The Doctor might be in love, but certainly not with her. 

“Donna?”

This wasn't her Spaceman.

Donna reached over, grabbed up the bat, and whacked the Doctor over the back of the head. He slumped bonelessly into the dirt.

“I thought you said we could trust him?” Asked Wen. “That he could help us?”

“Yeah, well, they got him,” said Donna, hurrying to get off the Time Lord and check him over. “He’ll be better when he wakes up. Hopefully.”

She stood up, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Listen, I’ve got to go put a stop to this, whoever or whatever is transmitting the signal from the Forge. He’ll be no good till I do.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Pac. “You need someone to show you the way.”

“Alright,” she agreed with a nod. At the first sign of danger, she'd send him back home, but she did need to get there first.

“But what if you don't come back?”

Donna crouched down to get on Gil’s level and placed her hands on his shoulders.

“I will, I promise. I just need you to be very patient and very brave, and to tell the Doctor where I’ve gone when he wakes up, alright?” The little boy nodded and Donna hugged him for a short moment. Then she stood once more and joined Pac at the door.

With a final look at the Doctor’s prone form, Donna swallowed down the lump in her throat and marched back out towards the road leading to the Forge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so this took me a little longer to finish than I'd intended, but here is the conclusion of this little adventure! Thanks for your patience and for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Smoke billowed dark and thick in a growing cloud above them the further they went down the path. The silent town she’d left the Doctor behind in was long out of sight and what could be called daylight here seemed to be fading fast. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“It’s coming out of the canyon,” her young guide told her.

“Is there anything in the canyon?”

“Caverns,” he shrugged. “We’re not supposed to play in them, but sometimes we do anyway.”

“So no reason why there should be smoke coming from them,” she surmised. “It’s awfully dirty, isn’t it? That can’t just be a wood burning fire.”

They walked on, until Donna could see the edge of the canyon and the great plume of smoke rising out of it obscuring the other side.

Beside her, Pac stilled. “I can hear something, in my head.”

“It must get stronger the closer you are,” she reasoned, “and you’re older than the others. Do you think you might have some empathic ability?”

Pac squeezed his eyes shut, his head shaking. “I...I’ve never used it before. This isn’t what they said it’d feel like at all. It’s  _ wrong _ .”

“Okay, that’s — that’s good. You know it’s not supposed to be there, Pac, you can fight it,” Donna encouraged. “Don’t listen to what it says. You need to go back to the others.”

“No,” the boy stubbornly shook his head. “If I leave you now I won’t remember why I’m supposed to stay away from this place. I said I would show you the way. That’s the only thought keeping them out — you’ll stop them.”

He sounded so convinced. Donna had no idea how to tell him she hadn’t the faintest clue what was happening on this moon or where to begin putting an end to it. But that was also precisely what he didn’t need to hear right now. Donna could pretend for one young boy. She could do that if it’d keep him safe. It was what they did all the time, her and Doctor, and while he couldn't be here she'd make do.

“Alright then. You stick with me. Tell me if it gets any worse.”

Pac nodded, then took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “There’s a safe passage down into the canyon this way.”

He led her around to a slightly steep and rocky path. Donna was so glad she’d worn sensible shoes for this outing. Pac took the lead, having a better handle of the narrow path and she was careful to follow in his exact steps. It was slow going, in part as the less noise their approach made the better, but as the path curved more and more on the descent they began to get a view of what all was below them.

What looked like countless people were milling about, all with the same vaguely blank expression. Some of them were entering one of the largest caverns, while others were leaving with baskets full of what seemed to be rocks, at least from a distance. Still others were working on the construction of something totally separate from the caverns. It looked like a giant drill. So this was the oh-so-appealing Forge the Doctor had been drawn to. All these people being forced into what looked like terribly hard labor not of their own will.

There was also a fairly small spaceship sitting on the canyon floor. In front of it stood two more aliens, though these were clearly not local. They were taller and a slightly greenish color. Also, they did not appear to have mouths. Or ears.

As they watched, the two aliens turned as one and began walking over to the drill, leaving their ship unguarded. Donna supposed they didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing when they had everyone in the immediate area under their control. Well, almost everyone.

“If we want to know what they’re doing, that’s the place that’ll have the answers,” Donna whispered, pointing at the ship. “Come on.”

She and Pac hurried the rest of the way down to the canyon floor, then crept around the side of the spaceship trying to avoid being spotted. They needn’t have bothered; the few people who she thought might have seen them did not have a visible reaction. They must not have been given any commands regarding intruders. The two of them slipped through the doors and had a look around.

There were two main areas of the ship. Half of it comprised of what she supposed was a cockpit of sorts, and the other half seemed more like an office. There was a desk and chairs at any rate. A large map of the moon was tacked up on the wall along with star charts like the ones her grandad showed her sometimes. Their course appeared to have been charted on them, and it looked like a return trip was being planned at the moment. Only it didn’t seem to be a round trip; so far, it looked like their next destination would be orbiting this same moon.

A couple pieces of rock sat on the desk, some of them misshapen but even more of them in the shape of cubes. She picked one up and found it much heavier than she expected. “It’s some kind of metal. Silver, or — platinum, maybe. My mate Veena, she dated a jeweler once. She was really hoping for a good ring.”

Pac did not appear to be listening. He had his eyes squeezed shut again and looked to be putting every effort into fighting off the influence of those aliens so nearby. Donna decided it was definitely best to keep moving and then get them out of here. She went around to the other side of the desk and tried one of the drawers. It opened, much to her relief — God, why hadn’t she thought to take his sonic with her? Even if it was rubbish with wood. — and she removed a sheaf of important looking papers and flipped through them.

“This looks like a map of some kind. It’s of one of the caverns.” It had plenty of helpful annotations, like the fact that it was platinum ore deposits they were after, and the spot they planned to engage the drill.

“Some of these diagrams keep going on about structural integrity. I’m not really sure what they mean about that.”

“Donna,” said Pac.

“Just a minute. This isn’t talking about the structural integrity of the mine. It’s talking about the  _ moon _ .” She looked back at the map on the wall. “Spaceman said it’s barely six miles in diameter. That’s way too small for a drill like that. They’re gonna destroy the Sixth Moon of Kazzarack just to get at the platinum,” Donna realized with horror.

“Donna!”

“What is it, Pac?” Was the voice in his head becoming too much? “Is it them?” She spun back around and froze.

The two aliens had returned and stood in the doorway, staring at them and blocking any path to escape.

“Yeah,” said Pac.

—-

The Doctor awoke with a muffled groan and a pounding headache. It felt as if he’d been walloped over the back of the head and left to lie in the dirt somewhere.

Oh right. He had.

He turned his face to the side, blinking his eyes open to see a little girl standing a ways off. Something told him she wasn’t of any concern, not while he needed to be on his way to the Forge—

“Oh no you don’t,” the Doctor growled.

The little girl jumped. “What?”

He winced. “Not you. Sorry.” It wouldn’t do at all the frighten her any more than he must have already. Slowly he sat up, rubbing the back of his head. That was quite the lump; did Donna  _ really _ have to strike him that hard? Given the choice, he would have preferred a slap.

In fairness, he had caught her rather unawares with his ill-timed admission. In his somewhat weakened state the words he’d spent so long reigning in had left him freely as he’d pitted his hopes and trust and very  _ love  _ of Donna against the unwanted influence in his mind.

And now thanks to that his very friendship with Donna was probably about to be called into question. Hang on, where even  _ was _ Donna?

“Where’s Donna?” He asked the little girl suddenly, or at least it must have seemed sudden to her for she jumped again.

“She went to the Forge,” said an even smaller voice, and he turned his head — ohh not so fast, really not a good idea to move that with any speed at all — to see a little boy sitting in a far corner of the room. “She promised she’d come back.”

“Right, I’ll just go get her then,” he said, pushing himself onto his feet. The rational side of him knew it was pointless worrying too much about Donna; she'd already proved immune to the as yet unknown mental influence. The rational side of him didn't seem to have much success when it came to matters of Donna, however, as had clearly been proven with this little exercise.

“I don't think she meant for you to follow her,” the little girl asserted quite accurately as he reached the door.

“She doesn't mean for me to do a lot of things,” was the Doctor's flippant reply.

He took the dirt road out to the growing smoke plume at a jog at first, then increased it to a run when it didn't prove too bothersome to his head. There was a lot of time to be made up for, after all, and the faster he got there the less time he’d have to dwell on how he was ever going to fix things with Donna.

Unfortunately, he was forced to draw up short at the edge of what looked to be a very deep cavern. The smoke was coming out of it and distantly he could hear the sounds of machinery — the missing Kazzarackians had to be down there, and Donna with them. But how to get  _ himself _ down there?

The Doctor paced back and forth with increasing agitation. He could go back and ask one of the children or simply take the TARDIS straight down to the bottom, but would that take too long? The compulsion was still trying to get another foothold in his mind, and it was even stronger now, which meant whatever or whoever was doing this hadn't been stopped. What if they'd gotten Donna first?

But then, abruptly, the Doctor noticed a shift in the voice. It was no longer soft and soothing; it sounded insistent, almost forceful. He nearly staggered under the weight of it, and it was only his fear that kept his mind his own. There was only one thing that could have caused such a change.

The Doctor cupped both hands over his mouth and drew in as much of the smoky air as he could stand.

“ _ Donna! _ ”

—-

The creatures hadn't made a single move, merely continuing to stare. Not one for tense silences, Donna finally broke it.

“Look, there's no point pretending. We know what it is you're here for and what you're planning to do to this moon. Well we're not gonna let you! You can let all these people go from your mind control or whatever and fly away in your ship right now!”

The only reaction they made was to narrow their eyes. One of them tilted their head to the side, as if struggling to understand what she'd meant. But that made no sense; the TARDIS was supposed to translate for her!

“Oi! I mean it. If you don't want reported or whatever the space equivalent is you’ll clear out!”

Again they didn't give her the slightest indication one way or the other. Were they just ignoring the fact she was talking? Donna fumed. If there was one thing she couldn't abide, it was being ignored.

Beside her, Pac shuddered. “They're irritated.”

“Yeah, well they're not the only one,” she muttered.

Yet still, neither of them were making a move towards her or to respond. Were they just stuck in some kind of standoff then?

“ _ Donna! _ ”

Donna and Pac both started at the sound; the other aliens started only after they’d started.

“That sounds like your friend,” the boy said.

“Yeah,” said Donna. The Doctor sounded a long way off, and just what state was he in? 

Deciding the invaders could wait since they were proving so uncooperative, Donna pushed past them, dragging Pac along by the hand. It wasn’t like they’d had any weapons, and they seemed taken aback enough at the sudden move that they were easily bowled over.

Once outside, Donna looked around but didn’t see a sign of her best friend. “Spaceman?”

“Up here, Donna!”

She looked up and even further up to just make him out standing at the top of the canyon.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay! Are you?”

“Oh, just fine me! Just looking for a way — nevermind, no time.”

The two aliens had finally come running out of the ship after her and Pac, though they did little more than stand a few paces back and glare at her a bit. Though Donna couldn’t really be bothered by that when she looked back up to see the Doctor had begun to lower himself over the side of the canyon and seemed to be feeling around blindly for a foothold.

What was he  _ doing _ ? “You’re gonna break your neck! Go around, there’s a path thirty feet to the left!”

“Your left or mine?”

“Your left  _ is _ my left right now, Martian!” She shouted up at him, watching with no small amount of panic as he attempted to scramble back up over the edge of the canyon.

“Donna,” Pac was tugging on her sleeve, and she turned to see what he was pointing at. A few of the people had stopped in their tracks, blinking and staring at them curiously.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Asked one of the women nearest to them. “And what are we all doing here?”

“All I remember is the strangest urge coming over me to dig up some rocks in the caverns,” remarked another. 

“Pac!” Cried a man, running forward and embracing the boy.

“Dad!”

She only had a moment to appreciate this unexpectedly happy reunion before she was grabbed up in a hug of her own. “Oi!” Donna was about to hit whoever it was until they spoke.

“Just me, just me,” said the Doctor, and she relaxed and returned the hug, only for a moment before she pulled back and looked him straight in the eye.

“You’re not here for the Forge?” She checked.

“No, I’m here for you, he answered plainly. “Anyway, looks to me the Forge is over.”

Several of the people who had only just minutes ago been toiling away unawares were now approaching the two aliens with their tools in hand, clearly having identified them as the source of all the trouble.

“But, how’d they break out of it?”

“You,” he told her. Donna stared at him. “The Telarpians — the Kazzarackian’s would-be invaders — are a purely telepathic species. They have written communication to keep records and history, but no verbal. They’ve never needed it, never encountered a non-telepathic species before. Until you.”

“So that’s why they didn’t act like they got what I was saying.”

He nodded. “Right. Apart from them not remotely understanding speech, they were rather cross you weren’t out here mining with everyone else no matter how many times they tried to impart that command. Must have been like being sent straight to voicemail. The Telarpians redoubled their efforts to control you, which weakened their influence on everyone else. And when the Kazzarackians all saw you standing there, loud and free, it broke through to something in  _ them _ , something that wanted the exact same thing. You shouted at the world and the world heard you.”

He was looking at her with pride, maybe even a little bit of awe, and Donna was tempted to bask in it a little. She’d saved a whole moon on her own.

But then, that also meant she’d saved Spaceman, and not with the bat.

“Hold on, that  _ wasn’t _ the mind control talking when you said—” Donna faltered; her face felt warm again and there was something making her insides all fluttery “—what you said?”

The Doctor blanched and couldn’t seem to meet her eyes all of a sudden. “Probably best to head back to the TARDIS,” was his non-answer. “I think the Sixth Moon of Kazzarack is about to have their first ever fight.”

“Yeah, alright,” she agreed for the moment. But if he thought they were just dropping it completely, he had another thing coming!

The walk back to the town was uncharacteristically quiet for them, but then, she supposed they were both thinking about it. He had to be thinking about it, right? She was.

Though she was momentarily distracted when the door of the small building they’d briefly stayed in opened and out ran Wen and Gil again.

“You came back!”

“Where’s Pac?”

“He’s with his father,” Donna answered. “The grownups are okay now. They’re just getting rid of the Forge and then they’re coming home.”

The two kids cheered, and she could see other children poking their heads out of doors or looking out the windows at them. Donna smiled.

The Doctor had continued straight on to the police box, however, and so she apparently was being left to make their excuses. Typical. “Listen, we’ve got to be on our way now. You take care of yourselves.”

“Thank you!” Wen hugged her briefly around the legs and she patted the girl on the head.

“Bye now!”

It really was a nice town. Even if they hadn’t gotten round to that market. Maybe she could convince him to try for it again after a few trips. And after they talked. Right. Donna drew in a breath, then entered the TARDIS. Her Spaceman was already standing by the controls, but he waited silent and still as she came up the ramp.

“Right, so,” the Doctor began. His gaze had fallen to the grating. “Home, yes?”

Donna gaped and her heart gave an uncomfortable lurch. “What do you mean? What’d I do wrong?”

That got him looking back up at her. “You? You haven’t done anything. Actually, that’s the problem, you’ve done everything right and I — I can’t keep lying to you, Donna, or pretending.”

“Pretending what?” Her voice hardly sounded her own, soft and yet oddly choked.

He grimaced. “You’re really gonna make me say it again?”

“Well I’m still finding it hard to believe you said it the first time! Why would you say it?”

“Because it’s true?” His voice was rising to increasingly high decibels. She was starting to worry about him.

But still, she had to know. “Is that a question or is it actually true, Martian?”

The Doctor groaned. “Look, let’s just forget I said it altogether. You want to keep traveling clearly, and I’m fine with that. More than fine, obviously, but — it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t  _ have _ to matter, Donna. Donna?”

He approached her haltingly, like he was unsure of his welcome. She supposed he had good reason to be.

“It’s just, I thought you—” she paused, and rethought how she wanted to say it. No point bringing up old pain unnecessarily. “You’re really sure it’s  _ me _ you’re in love with? The Telarpians didn’t cross some wires in your brain?”

He sighed. “No, Donna.”

“But how can you know for sure?”

“Because I remember being in love with you before we ever came here.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh.”

He was looking down again and fiddled with a knob on the controls. “Yep.”

“And you — hold on, why am I supposed to  _ forget _ about this?” That was the part Donna couldn’t wrap her head around. He loved her, but he wanted to act like he didn’t? “Is this one of those ‘I love you, but I just can’t be with you’ things? There was a bloke who tried that with Susie Mair, you know, but really he just wanted what they all want.” Her eyes narrowed momentarily. “So if that’s what this is about,  _ you _ can forget the whole thing!”

He was staring at her like he’d only got half of that. Almost like the Telarpians, really. Eventually he shook his head. “No, Donna, it’s an ‘I love you, but  _ you  _ don’t want to be with me’ thing.”

She froze. “Oh.”

“Yep.”

Donna replayed the whole conversation in her head. Had she really not said? Well no, because first he’d started off with the whole dropping her home thing and that had terrified her, then she just couldn’t believe he’d meant it, and then she’d had to make sure just  _ what _ he’d meant by it — but in meantime she’d clearly given him the completely wrong impression.

“Doctor.” She stepped forward, but he walked around to the other side of the time rotor.

“Seriously, Donna, I’d rather we stop talking about it.”

“Well  _ I’d _ rather we not,” she said, following him. “You’ve barely let me talk about it! You don't even know what I think about it!”

“I told you how I felt and you hit me over the head with a bat,” he reminded. She winced, watching as he touched a hand to the spot in question. “ _ Really _ hard.”

“Well I thought it was the mind control!” She defended.

“Why would it be mind control?” He sounded incredulous. “What would be the point in that?”

“I dunno, you could've been — dazzling me, so I'd let you go and you’d be free to do bad stuff!”

“Why would you be dazzled?”

Donna's mouth opened, but she couldn't seem to say it. She'd spent all this time holding it in that she just didn't think she could.

“I...dazzle you?” The Doctor asked. “Donna?”

She turned away abruptly, knowing her face had to be about as red as it could get. “I didn't say that,” she muttered.

“ _ Donna. _ ” He was cajoling her now, reaching for her elbow to spin her back around. Oh this was so shaming. How had he turned this around on her?

More than a little flustered, she prodded him in the chest. “Oi, you were the one who said you just wanted to be mates!”

“Well  _ you _ said I was a long streak of alien nothing!”

“Right!” Donna agreed. “So how’d we end up here?”

He shrugged helplessly. “Love?”

Donna felt the beginnings of a smile tug at her lips. She reached for his hands. “Will you say it again? Please?”

“You haven't even said it once,” he pointed out, but when she stared him down he caved. “I love you, Donna Noble.”

He had to catch her round the waist because she threw her arms around him, but he was soon returning her hug with equal fervor. Donna pulled back, and, that strange fluttering sensation having returned in full force, pressed her lips to his. She hadn't thought she'd ever get another chance after the detox, and this was already miles above that mess of a kiss!

The Doctor broke away disappointingly soon, however, looking at her with big, brown pleading eyes. “Are you gonna say it ever?”

She rolled her eyes. Was it seriously still in question? Admittedly he’d obliged her and she had given him a rather hard time today; her fingers, where they were now tangled in that ridiculous hair of his, were able to find a sizable lump on the back of his head. She'd have to get a proper look at that later, but in the meantime there were other ways she needed to tend to her alien.

“Yeah, alright.” Donna pecked him on the lips once more for good measure. “Love you too, Spaceman.”


End file.
